Liveblogging as usual, so keep checking back here for updates. Also follow the #risingtide and #rt4 hashtags on Twitter.
The fourth annual Ashley Morris Award For Excellence In Blogging goes to … American Zombie! Jacques Morial accepting on behalf of Dambala.
Sinn Fein and Ashe. FYYFF!
Update: Video of Oyster’s introduction and Jacques’s acceptance speech
Liveblogging as usual, so keep checking back here for updates. Also follow the #risingtide and #rt4 hashtags on Twitter.
You want a citizen journal, you’ve got a citizen journal: Ariella Cohen talks to us about the New Orleans Institute and announces the upcoming Orleans’s own investigative news site: New Orleans Public Record.
Based on The Washington Independent and San Diego Independent News.
Liveblogging as usual, so keep checking back here for updates. Also follow the #risingtide and #rt4 hashtags on Twitter.
Harry Shearer takes stage. “I’m delighted to be anywhere, any time I’m in New Orleans.” I can’t decide whether it’s Mr. Burns, Smithers or Ned Flanders talking to me and it shakes me to my very pop-culture core. No, wait, it’s Principal Skinner.
“If they could get Geraldo Rivera in here after the storm, why couldn’t they get food and water in?”
“We have lost the media battle of what happened to us.” A lot of comments from “people who don’t wish us very well.” N.B.: In my time in Ohio, I’ve received only one “That city should never have been rebuilt” but not a lot of folks realize that the hurricane did not cause the majority of the damage here and that the whole city is not below sea level.
Laziness of mainstream media: “They did not seem to get to St. Bernard, Lakeview, Gentilly … They get a sense of what the story is, a template [and stick to it].” Talks about time as a Newsweek reporter sent on “template” assignments, e.g. rooftop living in Los Angeles.
On Johnette Napolitano’s fact-finding visit: “They’ll never be able to build a levee big enough to withstand Katrina? Really?” Pssst, visit the Netherlands. For shame.
On blogging for Huffington Post: “The important point is I have the luxury of not rushing to print with [a story], a luxury a journalist does not have.”
On being conduits for information: “Robert Novak was known, on the one hand, for being a parasitical conduit for his inside sources but there’s a complicated relationship. Every whistleblower has an agenda; no source feeds you information without an agenda. We have an obligation to … what may elevate us over mainstream journalism is taking a second look at the issue. If I am going to pass this along to my readers, [I have to let them know] what [the source's] interest is and what our relationship is.”
The bad news: “At the beginning of the Obama administration, I started getting the same messages from the Left as I was from the Right. Some of the Obama commenters said, ‘Why are you blowing off steam in the Huffington Post? You’re a celebrity, go talk to the White House.’” [Impersonation of Mr. Burns talking to President Obama.] Recites his odyssey of contacting White House and being rebuffed. Mentions attending The Dutch Dialogues. Finally reached “David Washington” and, in two weeks, got a call from the legislative liaison for the Army Corps of Engineers. *headsmack* Was advised not to talk to David Axelrod or Rahm Emanuel “because all they want to do is destroy Bobby, just like their predecessors wanted to destroy Kathleen.”
Brian Williams finally told Shearer the truth: “Honestly, we feel that the [raw, contextless] emotional stories are more compelling for our business.” According to Shearer, the emotional stories are our job. “Can’t fight water, water always wins. We need to learn to live with water.” Was this in reference to the Army Corps or nature? If it was said with respect to nature, it contradicts what he said before.
Shearer is done playing the Inside The Beltway game and intends to write about it (look for upcoming articles /interviews in Times-Pic and WWNO). Again stresses that bloggers have the luxury of time, to dig up facts and take advantage of those time resources.
Do we ever need this good news! Besos, Karen!
… Karen Gadbois, armed with little more than a laptop and a digital camera, singlehandedly blew the whistle on the New Orleans Affordable Housing scandal, which she documented on her blog, www.squanderedheritage.com. The result? An FBI investigation, admiring writeups of her efforts in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, and new respect for the power of the citizen blogger.
The Gambit – with its Eightball-esque cover illustration of the honorees – got it right in the full story that Karen is hope. And hard work, dedication and, boy, you don’t want to stand in this woman’s way when she’s going.
This is what I want “citizen bloggers” and “real journalists” to understand:
This medium here, these characters in 1s and 0s on this virtual page, isn’t all about blogging, journalism and the “war” being waged over lost consumers in between. It doesn’t all involve vanity, therapy and electronic coffee klatches, either. Sometimes, it’s simply about getting the news out that has to come out. Not because you and I have the right to know but because people’s homes, lives and futures depend on it. If a weblog happens to be the most expeditious vehicle for vital information to be released, so be it. If that information then makes it to the newspaper and airwaves where more people catch it, even better. If we the public take action on what we’ve learned no matter where we got it, mission accomplished. Don’t let artificial arguments over what blogging and journalism are in the minds of pundits or what they ought to be shape your ownership and use of the tools of communication.
Now, where’s the awards ceremony and after party? Dear Kevin, inquiring minds want to know.
All hell is breaking loose in Mumbai as a result of serial bomb blasts, shootings and now the taking of hostages. 80 are now dead and hundreds injured. The word on the street is that the terrorists are targeting those with American and British passports and have taken many hostage inside hotels in the ritzier southern part of Bombay. As of this writing, two terrorists are confirmed dead and seven in police custody, but it is still unknown whether the terrorists are homegrown or foreign. (If you’re up to looking at it, here is a picture of one of the terrorists.) Sadly, the chief of the State of Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad, Hemant Karkare, was killed along with two other senior officers.
As usual, mainstream media is useless and slow in its updates. I’ve been following the #mumbai Twitter feed and Mahalo is doing a great job rounding up all the news. Blogger Vinu is on the scene and is uploading many of his pictures to Flickr. Gauravonomics has an excellent post up about the power of real-time citizen journalism during these attacks; he has a more extensive set of links. Here is an annotated Google map of Mumbai attack locations. Although a friend in Mumbai says the CNN-IBN and NDTV coverage are pretty restrained, here are links: CNN-IBN and NDTV
Twitter user yelvington just said, “Fascinating. CNN is filling airtime; #mumbai channel is full of tidbits posted by witnesses.” Another chided India’s NDTV for showing footage from one part of the city and referring to it as another (New Orleanians, remember when FOXCNNMSNBC did this during Katrina and Gustav? It’s not just us.)
This is especially painful right now because my parents are in India, even if in Chennai many hundreds of miles away. We have friends in Mumbai, friends who are getting ready to travel there and D, my parents and I are planning to visit northern and northwestern India next year. Only a little while ago, Jaipur, Delhi and Bangalore were hit. The scariest part is not knowing what’s next, where, by whom and why. All those people hurt by people who want to hurt …
The Indian army is finally moving in. I often refer to the Indian government and army as approximately as useful as New Orleans city government or our spineless Democrats, but Mumbai can now use all the help it gets.
Please hope and pray for India.
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